Alone
by MsPryde
Summary: Daryl finds a girl holed up in a shopping mall. She's the epitome of a little lady and the absolute opposite of Daryl. She also might just be the touch of gentility that he won't admit he needs. Darylxoc OC Dahlia also might be a little RickxOC sshhh
1. Chapter 1

She's on the roof again. She's lying on her belly and peering over the side of the roof just ever so slightly, enough to see the straggling undead and she's wondering if there's any point in taking them out or not. She's not the best shot, in fact she's really not very good at all but she's definitely getting better. Thinking of her progress makes her want to go ahead and practice so she moves her dress around to cover her knees and then sits herself up on them. She reaches for the bow by her side and fits an arrow onto it, she sticks her tongue out as she concentrates on one of the uncoordinated creatures below but doesn't notice. She takes the shot and the arrow misses entirely, going nowhere near the one she was aiming for and instead lodging itself in the foot of another person-thing nearby.

She frowns but grabs another arrow and tries again, she aims, pulls and vrOOOMMMM –her arrow goes straight into the sky and lands somewhere near the parking lot. She's irritated that the stupid car noise ruined her shot but then holy shit a car noise ok that means a person and on reflex she falls to the side and flattens herself out, peeking just barely over the edge of the roof as she did just a few minutes earlier. It's a motorcycle and the noise of it is attracting all the creatures. There isn't a terrible amount, less than when she first ever dared to look out from the roof top, certainly. She counts about fifteen and then another handful in the parking lot before she doesn't feel like counting anymore.

She hears something that sounds like a person swearing and she looks back towards where she last saw the motorcycle. It's coming towards the mall still, though now its being chased by a lot of the creatures. Shit. The guy riding it is jumping off, grabbing his keys, racing towards the doors of the mall. This is bad, she doesn't exactly want them clawing at her front door again. The man's realized the door is locked and is running towards the side of the building, she's nervous but she doesn't know what to do so she jumps to her feet and runs along the roof to keep watching him, her dress billowing out behind her.

He's found the fire escape and is climbing up it-towards her. Part of her wants to run inside and lock the door to the roof but then she's extending a hand towards him and he's taking it, his large, calloused palm meeting her small, soft one and then he's on the roof, standing in front of her, towering over her and-

"Who the hell are you?" he asks and her eyes go wide. She's not sure if she's more surprised at the sound of another human voice or the fact that he's so blatant and rude but either way she's shocked.

"My name is Dahlia, are you-are you okay?" She asks softly, gazing up at him feeling like a small child.

"'M fine. What you doin' up here?"

She starts to answer and then stops herself, puts her hands on her hips.

"You haven't even told me your name and you're asking all kinds of questions. Just because there are monsters everywhere doesn't mean that we have to act like them. Don't you be rude." She's wearing the expression that her friends used to call "The mom face" and the man seems taken aback by it. She crosses her arms over her chest and raises her eyebrows expectantly.

"I don't gotta tell you nothin'." He says and her mouth drops open a bit.

"I'm just asking your name not your social security number. I told you mine, it's rude not to tell me yours."

"I don't care." He replies rebelliously and she pouts. He snorts.

"Daryl." He says simply and her wide eyes search his face in wonder and then she looks away, nods. She collects her bow and the quiver of arrows from the spot she took up previously and then leads him into the mall stairway via the roof entrance.

Daryl has a massive crossbow that he's holding in front of him protectively and she puts a hand on his wrist. He narrows his eyes at her and looks so pissed that she removes her hand quickly but says, "There aren't any in here anymore. You can put that down." Softly and he looks around a bit more before letting it rest at his side, ready to be used just in case.

"Where are they? You clear this place yourself?" he asks and his voice is as rough as his hands were.

"No, it was already clear. I just stayed. Everyone else left." She replies, leading him out of the fire escape stairway that they used to get down from the roof. She makes sure it shuts behind her and then she pulls a set of keys out of her bra and locks it.

"I scan all the shops and all the entrances every morning, I lock every single shop, every door unless I use them and once I'm done using them I lock them. I don't go down to the main floor anymore. There are two layers of door but they're both glass. Strong glass, but still glass. They can see you through them and if they see you they try to get in. If I stay on the second floor they don't know I'm here and they lose interest. As long as I'm not loud they tend to not really care about the mall. There used to be a lot more outside but as time went by they a lot of them have wandered off…"

He follows her, scanning the mall's empty shops as they go. The shops are dark, there are no lights on. She leads him to the security office and unlocks the door, she ushers him inside and he gives her a suspicious glare but goes. He instantly spots the big mattress and curtains in the holding cell and turns to look at her.

"You been sleepin' in here?" He asks, going to inspect it. She watches him peek around her bed for a moment before answering, "Yes, I close the cell sometimes too when I'm really scared…" He looks back at her at that and seems to finally register that she's a tiny woman and she suddenly feels unbearably small.

"You alone?" He asks but it sounds more like a statement and she just nods and stares at the monitors on the far wall of the office. He moves his mouth almost like he's chewing gum but then just sort of nods and then looks at the screens.

"There's still power here?" He asks, sauntering over to the screens displaying the video feed from security cameras throughout the mall.

"There are several generators meant to keep the mall powered in case of a blackout. Before the others left, one of the guys redid the generators to only power this room, the bathrooms and the main freezer in the middle of the food court. The rest of the shops have been cut off to make the power last longer. I can change it back to bring light on in the shops but its better this way."

He gives a little nod and then turns and looks at her again. They both stand there awkwardly staring at each other for a few seconds before she gasps, he raises his crossbow an inch.

"I've completely forgotten myself! Daryl, right? Come with me, love, you must be hungry or thirsty or something, right? Come, come, come." She says, smiling brightly at him, he makes a face in between annoyed and confused at her and she just smiles brighter, ushering him back out the door.

Xx

"Damn, sugar, what have you been eating? Squirrels?" She jokes and he nearly chokes on his sandwich.

She watches him with amusement from her spot behind the island of what used to be the center café of the food court. He gives her an odd look and she giggles, pushing one of her dark brown curls behind her ear and smoothing out her bangs before stirring the soup. She turns off the stove and ladles a plentiful helping of chicken noodle into a bowl before setting the bowl on a plate with some artfully arranged crackers and a spoon. She takes it over to him and sits down across from him.

"Why you doin' all this?" he asks, bobbing his chin out at her. She cocks her head to one side.

"I'm a lady. It's the most I can do." She answers, like it's the most obvious thing in the world and Daryl looks downright bewildered. He starts spooning at the soup.

"Are you…will you be staying for dinner?" She asks suddenly and it sounds so unbelievably casual but he looks back up at her and she's staring at the ground and looking like she might be about to cry.

He's about to tell her that he needs to get back to his camp, that there are others waiting for him, wondering where he is, but then she turns her head back towards him and her wide, green eyes look hopeful and sad and he looks back down at his soup before nodding.

"Gotta wait for the walkers to clear out a little bit, no way to get back to my bike without losing an arm."

She beams at that and is out of her seat and around the table and hugging onto his back before he's even registered what's happening. He's annoyed that she's touching him but she's soft and he can smell her and then she's gone and he didn't even have the chance to shoo her away.

"Once you're done eating, I'll show you a few more things you might want, okay?" She says, smiling. "And I think there are some apples that are still good. I'll make you an apple pie tonight." She says grinning and he's still confused.

"Why-"

"Because I've never seen anyone who looked so much like they could use a break and want someone to take care of them. Want. Not need. Just want."

He stares at her for a long time and then he finishes his soup.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Please let me know what you think! And thanks for reading! 3

Xxx

Xx

Dahlia gives Daryl a tour of the mall, she shows him each and every room and he's only vaguely interested until they come to a small furniture store. There are bed stands and a few sofas and several beds in the shop. Daryl can easily see the spot that Dahlia pulled the mattress now residing in the security office from.

"Why don't you just sleep in here?" He asks, peering around the store a little more as he waits for her to answer. When she doesn't respond he turns back and realizes she's not even there anymore. His jaw drops a bit and he looks around the store almost comically for her before scratching his head and staring at the ceiling for a minute. "Can't get her to shut up for more than two seconds and then she just up and disappears, I don't-"

"Are you still in here? It's a furniture store, I didn't think you'd be so interested."

He whips around quickly, raising his crossbow and she's standing so close to him that he nearly hits her in the face with it on accident. Her big, green eyes blink closed a few times and her mouth is a perfect O as she stares up at him but she doesn't look shocked, she looks curious.

"Come on then, love, don't stand around here all day. If you're debating whether or not to shoot me that's a normal reaction, practically everyone in this mall wanted to pull a gun on me one day or another." She grins and spins on the heel of her little flats and her dress twirls up around her and then she's walking away, so fast that she could be gliding and Daryl is confused watching after her. He didn't even have good moves when it came to picking up drunk sluts in a bar, how was he supposed to ? He wasn't. No good would come of him messin' around and getting all stupid over some girl, so why even-

"HEY, SWEETHEART, DON'T TAKE IT SO HA-A-A-ARD, _I'm sorry I was bringing you down!"_ he can hear her singing from the door way and he doesn't try to stifle the chuckle it brings him as he follows her out the door of the shop.

"Okay, I've been saving the best for last! Hopefully you like it because I figured I'd go start on that apple pie while you played in there for a bit." He glares at the side of her head after the comment about him "playing" but she doesn't seem to notice and she turns and smiles at him so honestly that he stops glaring at her after that.

It turns out to be a big Sports Equipment shop. She opens the door and immediately leads him over to the crossbows where there are plenty of brand new bolts he could use since his are nearly all gone. Then she goes towards the front counter and pulls out her ring of keys again and makes to unlock one of the glass cases but then doesn't. He can see her out of the corner of his eye while pretending to look at the crossbows hanging on the wall but after that he turns his head a little and watches her more closely.

The keys are hanging from lock on the glass case and she seems to be frozen in place with one hand on the top of the glass case and the other hand reaching out just slightly towards the keys like she's about to pull them out. For a second Daryl's pretty sure time stopped while he was looking at the crossbows and now he's stuck going normal speed without anyone else but then he can see her chest rising and he can't miss how big her eyes get all of a sudden. He rushes to her and leans over the glass counter, pushes her away from it, "What is it!? What'd you see!?" He yells, jumping over the counter and looking around for a walker, he doesn't see anything at all and by then she's waving her hands around in front of her face at him.

"Sorry! Sorry! No, no zombies! I'm sorry, I was just having a bit of a moment you know, being silly." She gives a very fake, somewhat unsettling smile and Daryl cringes at the sight of it on her face. It fades away and leaves her face looking a morose sort of blank after that. "My friend Charlie…Friend is a loose term. I didn't really see or talk to him much," She glances at Daryl as if to check whether or not he's even interested and since he is she continues, "But I liked him. Just as a friend, you know, but I still liked him. I never told him that though, and every time he asked to get a drink together or told me I should go hang out with him and his friends I said 'no'….I said no, like I had something better to do when I didn't and now…" She stares straight ahead and with her head tilted upwards a bit and Daryl realizes it's the same way she looked when he noticed she froze up. He follows her line of vision and finally notices a very faded red stain on the wall of the shop. The cash register is directly in front of that space of wall and Daryl wonders if he worked here.

"He own this place?" Daryl asks softly and Dahlia is obviously startled by his voice. "Yeah, that's how I knew him, I mean…" she shakes her head after that and reaches out a hand to grab one of Daryl's in. He lets her. She comes close to his body and it's almost as though she's trying to both hug him and simply rest her head on his chest but it only lasts a moment and then she's gone, her hand disconnecting from his as she turns away.

"But let's not talk about all that…Thanks…for um, jumping to my rescue and everything though that was…that was really something." She nods a bit to add emphasis but she looks wistful, far away. Her eyes flicker upwards to Daryl's face and they search his own bright, blue eyes for something he's not sure he has and then she nods again, "I'm going to leave my keys with you… I'm… I trust you…please just… I trust you." She says and then quickly exits the shop, leaving Daryl alone and confused once again but he spots the bolts on a shelf and he doesn't let himself dwell on her for too much longer after that.


	3. Chapter 3

"It started with a whisperrrrrrrr! And that was when I kissed herrrrrrr! And then she made my lips hurrrrttt!"

"You sing some weird shit for a pretty girl." He says, walking around the counter with a new duffel bag filled with hunting knives, guns and bolts in it.

She bends over and puts the pie in the mini oven and then leans heavily against the part of the counter he's standing in front of.

"You think I'm pretty?" She asks, smiling at him. He feels his cheeks start to go a little pink and she lets out a loud giggle that echoes off the walls of the room.

"The apple pie is in the oven and I made some biscuits for dinner but I'm not sure what else to make to go with them…" She pouts a bit and hops up to sit on the counter, leaning against the display window by Daryl. He snorts at her.

"Got used to eatin' whatever I could hunt or I could find. Biscuits and apple pie sounds like a damn feast and you're wonderin' what they should 'go with'."

She bursts out laughing at that and then smiles at him like he's the single most amazing thing she's ever seen and Daryl has to look away because no girl's ever looked at him like that, and he likes it more than he wants to.

Xxx

The original question posed to her was, "What were you doin' in here in the first place?" but she seemed starved of conversation and had taken the question and ran as far as she could with it.

"I was surprised by how fitting it seemed to my life. That might seem…really self-centered but from my point of view I almost saw it coming. I spent so long running from people and responsibilities and just everything that when this 'thing' swept over the world I was kind of okay with it. Now I had a real reason to run from people and the monstrous things outside seemed better than the people I used to run from anyways."

When Daryl doesn't respond she pokes at the biscuit on her plate and continues.

"I grew up in North Dakota, my family was pressuring me to be a lawyer or something but I didn't want to, I didn't like it, it wasn't what I wanted to do. When I turned eighteen in June after high school they really came down on me, asking me when I was going to get myself together, go to college, get a job, move out and then my boyfriend at the time proposed to me. I left the next morning while everyone was at church and I left my sister a note telling her where I was going and that was it. I drove to Michigan, got a job as a waitress and lived with a friend for a few months. My family blew up my phone, so did my boyfriend. So I changed the number and only gave it to my sister. She's three years older to me and she was going to school to become some kind of biotechnologist or something. She was really interested in viruses and diseases, it was just something that made her really happy and excited her. I wanted that but didn't know where to find it. I didn't know what I wanted to do. My friend let me stay with her for free, she didn't mind the company. She was a trust fund baby and money was no big deal to her, she just wanted to help me find what I was looking for. She took me to a salon one day, we got our eyebrows done and our hair and makeup and that's when I realized that was something I might want to do. I started reading about it, got into costume makeup, got into regular makeup, prom makeup, all that stuff. It must seem very boring to you but every aspect of it is interesting to me. The way the color purple makes my eyes stand out and the right shade of blush makes a person look somehow happier. I thought I'd finally found my thing, my happiness. I started going to beauty school and I met a guy while I was going. I tried to stay out of everyone's way, I acted vague and when people asked me out or just wanted to be friends I always acted aloof and wouldn't do anything with them. I didn't want to disappoint anyone else, I guess. But this guy was stuck on me and we started going out… A year and a half later I was done with school and that guy wanted to marry me. He thought I was 'the one'."

She laughs and Daryl watches her as she wipes at her eye but says nothing, "I didn't know how to tell him that I wasn't 'the one' for anybody. That he might like me then but after we got married he would hate the way I spend my money or the way I obsess over new makeup lines or the way I would give away my coat to homeless people while I was walking home in the snow. I told my friend I loved her and I changed my number again, gave it to her, gave it to my sister. Didn't give it to him. And then I ran, again. After that I moved to New Jersey. I had a really nice, stable job in a cute salon and it was fantastic. I got an apartment close enough to it to let me walk to work every day and then two years after that I was working one evening and my mother came in. She was a lawyer and I guess she was in town for some convention, a meeting or something, I'm still not even sure.

She saw me though and she nearly ripped my hair out. She told me to come back home, that I was getting too old for running around and being stupid and that I needed to do something with my life, I'd never be able to support kids on that salary, I'd never move forward. I went home that night and thought about killing myself. I just wasn't sure if what I was doing was right, if it was good or not. I wasn't helping people, I wasn't helping the world, I was just a stupid girl doing something stupid that other stupid girls liked. She was right, I was getting older and I was still stuck in the same place. I'd never be able to buy a house on that salary, I had a nice apartment but we're all supposed to want the white picket fence dream, right?"

She pauses and breathes for a minute, " I didn't kill myself, obviously, but I handed in my two weeks and then I moved here. Makeup was still exciting to me, it was still something that made me happy, something I got up in the morning and really just wanted to do so… I got a job in this mall and avoided people more than ever, still trying to work out whether I was doing the right thing or not. I got asked out by the guy who worked in this café, and I turned him down, I just didn't want that, I didn't want anything to do with anyone, even the people I liked. I didn't want to have to run away again, I was tired of it. A few months later the outbreak started and I was working that night. A guy I knew was working security and he ushered everyone out of the mall, killed a few of the things that had gotten in here and then closed up all the doors, a few of the workers and security guys stayed and that's why I was here. About a week later they all decided to leave, some to try to find their families, some to try to find a real place to stay forever and some who just didn't want to be trapped in here anymore. I was the only one who stayed. I was finally alone, no one to judge me, no one to chase me, no one to run away from and so I stayed. It was just funny that when everyone else started running, I finally stopped. I wasn't even scared. I thought about killing myself so much that these things coming after me or even another person putting a gun up to my head just… doesn't even really matter to me, I guess. But I got lonely! I was finally alone and I wasn't even happy…"

Daryl doesn't know what to say. He never would have thought that she felt all that and so he sat there, saying nothing, staring at her as she wiped a few stray tears from her eyes and then she lifted her head up and smiled at him, big and bright.

"And then some insane man shows up on a motorcycle and I don't even know why I told him all that!" she laughs and then stands up and takes her plate around the counter to the sink.

She stands there looking down at the sink, frozen again and Daryl stands up and stands on the opposite side of the counter across from her.

"'Cause you had to tell somebody." He says simply and she looks up at him with wide eyes. He starts going around the counter to meet her.

"What do you have to tell?" She nearly whispers and then she sits down on the ugly, blue, tiled floor and he stares at her for a minute before answering.

"Don't got much to tell, never really liked that sharing circle bullshit." He grumbles and she smiles but shakes her head.

"Yeah, but I made you dinner and it's time for you to pay your dues, so it's story time." She jokes softly and he scoffs at her but sits down, leaning against the freezer and fiddling with his hunting knife.

Xxx

"It wasn't my damn problem anyways but I failed her and Carol too. I shoulda just kept lookin' after she went missin'. Not like I ain't been out in the woods after dark anyways, I shoulda found her. After we buried her I moved my tent away from the others. None of them even gave a shit about findin' that little girl. They all wrapped up in who's sleepin' with who and takin' over Hershel's property. No point even bein' in a group like that. That's when I went on a ride just to clear my head, maybe to see if I could find somewhere else to go on my own and now I'm here."

She had gradually drifted towards him while he relayed his story to her and by this time she was propped on the freezer next to him, so close their arms were touching and now she tilted her head onto his muscled arm.

"It wasn't your fault." She says quietly. "None of it."

"I _know it wasn't._", he says angrily and she jerks her head away at the sudden change in his tone, "Don't need you to tell me that."

"I think you do." She replies after a moment of hesitation, "I think you think it was your fault so I'm telling you it wasn't and I'm telling you that if all you've said is true then you're the most beautiful person I've ever met."

"I ain't a girl." He retorts annoyed and in that moment he seemed like a stubborn, rebellious child, too proud to believe that he had done something good.

"Beautiful isn't a girl word. It doesn't describe the way you look like 'cute' or 'handsome', though you are those things too", he looks at her out of the corner of his eye at that and she grins, "Beautiful describes who you are. It describes something deeper, it's a soulful word like 'love'. You cared so much about people you barely knew, you treated them like your family and risked your life for them time and time again. Without you they probably wouldn't have made it half as far. You'd be fine on your own and yet you stay with them, why? Because you care. That makes you beautiful…" her green eyes stare into his blue ones, "I think you're beautiful." She finishes softly and she leans forward and kisses his forehead.

"No one's ever called me that before." He says seeming unsure of the word, "Been called a lotta things but I ain't ever been called that."

She laughs out loud and then gets to her feet, smoothing out her dress.

"I like you." She says simply and then reaches out a hand to help him to his feet, he takes it and once he's up she hugs him tight and he does nothing to stop her.

"Don't you ever reciprocate?" She asks, grinning up at him and the pure confusion on his face makes her laugh again as he puts his arms around her. "There you go! I am a lady, I'm not supposed to be making all the first moves." She says smiling after she lets him go.

He stares at her for a second and later she would tell him that she thought she could cut through the tension in the air and serve it for breakfast, it was so thick, and then he grabs her by the waist and pushes her into the back wall of the café and kisses her hard and tender. It gets heated pretty quickly and his hands get lost in her curls after that and he can feel her running her fingers through his own dirty hair and when they break away to breathe she keeps one hand tight on his shirt.

"I think we could both use a shower." She huffs out between breaths, "What do you say, sugar?"

He all but growls at her and when she giggles he picks her up, throws her over his shoulder like a rag doll and she jokes about what a 'big, strong, man' he is as he carries her to the employee bathroom.


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm really not at all happy about how this story is going. I might discontinue/delete it. Something about Dahlia's character is just bothering me and I'm not sure how to fix it. So…just a bit of fair warning. Thanks for reading as always. **

**xx**

They don't have sex in the shower.

They kiss and she washes him, slowly and sweetly, paying extra attention to the barely healed wound on his chest.

She ushers him to sit down on the bench in the showers and he does and she washes his hair while kissing the side of his face. He doesn't complain.

Her body is not perfect in the slightest and there are scars on her upper thighs. Daryl notices them but before he says anything she whispers, "It's okay." Into his ear and moves around him to rinse his hair out.

He doesn't offer to help her wash her own hair, nor does she ask him to, but he ends up doing it anyways. She sits in front of him, nuzzled in between his legs and her long hair seems even longer when the water drags the curls out of it and makes it straight; it tickles his legs. He rubs the dark brown mass in between his hands with shampoo and it foams up, she leans back and rests against his body for a long time before standing up and rinsing her hair off.

Neither one of them particularly wants to leave the warmth of the shower but she kisses him hard on the lips one more time before turning the faucet off and wringing her hair out, stepping out of the handicap shower stall. She hands him a towel before wrapping one around her waist and then another over her hair in a messy turban style, he makes a face at her. She stares brightly up at him.

"Are you going to stay the night here? With me?" She asks quietly, all of the confidence that used to be apparent on her face now gone, like the makeup she had been wearing before the shower.

"I mean it's not like there's a cell phone they're gonna use to call you and tell you to come home." She adds and it sounds like she's smiling but she isn't.

Daryl doesn't know what to say. He hadn't planned on staying, he hadn't even considered it. Then again, it's dark out now. He would have to get from the roof to the ground to wherever he'd left his bike in the dark, surrounded by walkers.

"I'll stay." He says gruffly, "But I'm leavin' at first light."

She looks like she might cry but she doesn't, she offers a small smile and nods at him, walking away from the stall and towards the sinks to brush her teeth. She stops halfway there.

"Daryl." Her voice sounds quiet and small.

He grunts back at her and finishes pulling on his pants before walking over to her, "what's it?" he mumbles, pulling on his shirt at the same time.

"Are you bleeding?"

He freezes in the motion of fastening his belt. _Bleeding?_

He looks at her and she's frozen, gripping the edge of one of the sinks as her hair falls out of it's towel. She's staring at the marks on the floor near the door of the bathroom. Marks that neither of them remembers being there before; marks that are still wet.

There's blood on the floor near the doorway. It's been smeared and dripped in little spots and then it just stops.

"Doll, stay here." Daryl hisses, fixes his belt, and pulls out his hunting knife, heading towards the door.

"Dahlia." She says back absently, eyes still wide in fear. She doesn't seem to be registering anything other than the blood, the evil that's made it's way into her safe haven.

He flips open the shower curtain on the next stall and there's nothing. The next stall, nothing, the first stall of the room – nothing.

"Where did it come from? Where is /it/?" The anxiety is clear in her voice, "How did it get in!?" She throws her head back and begins looking wildly around the room, her eyes are wide and frightened, shining in the fluorescent lighting. The towel falls off her head and her hair doesn't quite break free of it before it falls to the floor and it snags her head back for a moment until she wrestles it off.

She's breathing loud, shallow breaths that don't seem to be giving her any air and there's a distinct noise outside the bathroom. It sounds like someone is dragging a backpack across the floor. She steps back until she's once again by the handicap stall they had just occupied and she struggles to put her panties and dress on as quickly as possible, she nearly falls over and into the stall but Daryl doesn't seem to notice, he's focused on whatever is moving beyond the door.

She's no better once she's fully dressed. She doesn't have to worry about keeping her towel up but that's not very important to her at the moment. She stays crushed against the back wall of the bathroom and tries to be quiet. She fights the urge to get back into the shower stall and hide beneath the bench.

The door knob twists and jerks and she gasps, her hand flies up to her mouth and her eyes water. She wants to cry. She's going to die here, she knows it. Daryl chances a glance back at her, he takes a moment, she can practically hear the wheels turning in his head as he registers her – shocked, scared, anxious, _useless. _He says nothing, though, and turns his head back towards the door, his knife ever at the ready, and his arm tireless.

He finally grabs the doorknob himself and turns it, jerks the door open and moves to the side.


End file.
